Here’s my brief summary of Margaret Wente’s predictable, by-the-numbers shot at the academic study of pornography:
Provocative lede! Bad puns. Academics write only jargon-filled articles that no one will ever read. Also: the stupid feminists used to be against porn, but now they’re pro-porn, but they’re still stupid (duh). Irrelevant academics can’t even make porn interesting. But you should be very alarmed by this trend! Academic research on porn will take over our universities! This research is trivial and therefore all higher education is unworthy of public support. All college students should watch porn, just not for college credit.
I don’t carry any water for porn studies here, but I also don’t think it’s the most irrelevant thing ever studied in an academic setting. (Because the internet. If you need any more reasons, see Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Ranch Raunch Culture. Also, see all of the women with breast implants and other plastic surgery in your town. It’s a pornified culture–we just live in it).
These articles by anti-intellectual right-wingers are about as original as a paint-by-numbers kit. (But I’m sure she opened the press kit all by herself!)